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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27755923">Dark Deeds, Dark Dreams</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/shamebucket/pseuds/shamebucket'>shamebucket</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Original Work</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Blood, Comes Back Wrong, Frottage, M/M, Magic - Ritual/Spell Requires Xcon, Magic Made Them Do It, mutual dubcon</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 21:21:19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,950</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27755923</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/shamebucket/pseuds/shamebucket</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Jie and Rafael mean the world to each other. When an accident tears them apart, they have to make do and stitch themselves back together... or die trying.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Grieving Widower With Trust Issues/His Devoted Husband Who Came Back Wrong</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Consent Issues Exchange 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Dark Deeds, Dark Dreams</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/prismaticvoid/gifts">prismaticvoid</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>CW: The details of the wreckage aren't graphic, but both characters were involved in a car accident.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>First, from nothing, comes a sound. He isn't lucid enough to understand it or to recognize it, but it sounds nice. Relaxing. It thrums, a steady beat filling his mind. <em>Lub-dub. Lub-dub. Lub-dub.</em> </p><p>Next, he regains his sense of feeling. It starts with his heart - the source of the beautiful rhythm. His heart strains against his rib cage as it awakens. With each beat, blood flows to his extremities. He's unnaturally cold, and the blood in his veins starts sludgy. The man isn't sure if he can correctly discern the passage of time, but he can finally feel inner heat filling his chilled body after what seems like several minutes. He is also aware that his body is sore and aches in places that it probably shouldn't. His left side is sore, but moving his arm to check why is too difficult a task for him at the moment. Another sound joins his heart, but he can't understand what the noise is or where it's coming from. It's from outside of him - that's all he knows, and it isn't as even as his heartbeat. All the same, it's a nice sound. </p><p>As his awareness of the outside world slowly comes back - next taste, then smell (blood in his mouth, incense in the air) - the man tries to make sense of where he is and what happened. He's Jie. He's thirty two, lives in America, has a husband. They met in high school and, after an embarrassingly long period of mutually crushing on each other, Rafael finally asked Jie out. They stayed together through college, and Jie asked Rafael to marry him five years ago. Jie is a social worker, and Rafael mainly works from home as a contractor for... various services. </p><p>Jie coughs, and feels liquid dribble out of his mouth. His ears ring as he gasps for air, his lungs pushing against his sore ribs as he finally breathes. The smooth sound stops, and ends in a gasp. The voice (who was chanting before?) calls to him, as if from underwater. "Jie?" With effort, Jie cracks open his eyes. Rafael is staring down at him with concern and uncertainty. "Jie, are you back?" </p><p>"Raf-" Jie croaks, and immediately rolls over and starts coughing again, his eyes scrunched closed in discomfort and pain. He hasn't regained full awareness of his body yet, but he can tell that something is very wrong. He shouldn't be feeling like this. Last he recalls, he was driving Rafael somewhere, and... </p><p>"Hey, hey," Rafael says quietly, pulling Jie onto his robed lap. He's trying to be soothing, but Jie can sense Rafael's barely contained excitement. "Shh, it's okay. You don't need to talk if you don't feel up to it." Jie wheezes and nods. Fuck, his left side hurts like a mother. At least Rafael's hand on his back is fairly soothing. "Oh, Jie, I'm so happy that you're back." Tears fall onto Jie's hair, and he slowly feels them seep through the strands onto his scalp. They have cooled by the time the water meets his skin. "I don't know what I would have done without you..." </p><p>"What..." Jie tries to vocalize his confusion as he opens his eyes again, but he more or less sees the answer to his question as he takes in his surroundings. </p><p>Jie is in the middle of Rafael's work room - the room that they've devoted for Rafael to work on his healing majick without interruption. Rafael is wearing a robe, as he usually does when he's working. Jie has, indeed, been coughing up blood. The scent of rose incense is unusual, but Jie thinks he can discern its purpose. Jie has been laid out on a white cloth, and he's entirely naked. He's not able to take an incredibly close look at his body, but he can see that he's pretty thoroughly bruised. His tawny skin has turned dark purple in places. A tome lies by their side, and Rafael's phone next to the book. Jie doesn't recognize it, but it looks really old. Rafael must not use it much... which means that he's probably never done this spell before. </p><p>"We were in an accident," Rafael says, wiping Jie's mouth. "But it's okay now! It's okay. You're back. I love you so much." </p><p>"Nnnngh..." Jie turns his head up to face Rafael, and Rafael kisses him. Jie knows that this should feel good, but his body is screaming at him to pay attention to his side. Slowly, Jie moves his hand to his ribs, where the pain is most concentrated. </p><p>Rafael pulls away and his eyebrows furrow in worry. "You can breathe easy, right? I think I said the right incantation..." Rafael turns to the side and flips through the tome. "Yeah, yeah. I should have regenerated where your lung got punctured, but healing ribs takes more time. Don't worry. Everything should feel better by tomorrow." Jie nods and grunts, trying to sit up. Rafael puts a hand on Jie's shoulder, keeping him down. Normally, Rafael isn't as strong as Jie is, but Jie doesn't think he could sit up now if he tried. "It's okay. Don't rush it." </p><p>"Fuck," Jie groans. "How long was I out...?" </p><p>Rafael presses his lips together tightly, hesitating, and then finally drops his mouth open to reply. "Three days." </p><p>"Shit. That's a long time." No wonder Jie's head is throbbing. </p><p>"Sorry, sweetie. I know you probably would have wanted me to go to the doctor, but..." Rafael sighs. "It just... had to be me, okay? I don't trust anyone else with your life." </p><p>"'Sokay," Jie says, although he's not completely sure that he understands what Rafael means. He knows that he would trust Rafael with everything, so he's sure it's okay. The only thing that he's becoming aware of is that the heat in his heart is warming his body maybe a little too much. What once felt like melting the ice set through his body now feels like a forest fire, rampaging through Jie's blood with every heartbeat. So much so that, despite the pain, (or maybe even because of it,) Jie feels himself getting hard. Rafael notices, and immediately he goes pale. Jie blinks slowly. "What's wrong?" </p><p>"Oh no." Rafael flips through the tome. "Did I fuck something up somewhere?" Rafael checks his phone. "No, no. Shit!" Rafael covers his face with his hand. "Oh, God." </p><p>"Raf, please..." Strength slowly seeps back into Jie's muscles, and he sits up. His chest doesn't seem to hurt so much anymore. He pulls Rafael's hand off of his face. "I'm here. It's okay... right?" </p><p>Rafael's eyebrows knit and he looks off to the side. "... Right." He's visibly trembling, though. "There's only a brief period of time where this spell works, and I think I did it right." Rafael squeezes his eyes shut and grips onto his curly hair. "If I fucked up and Jie is gone, and you're - ... Well, you wouldn't tell me, so what's even the point." </p><p>"I don't... follow..." Jie groans as he feels his cock throb. It's extremely hard, to the point where it's more painful than his actual life-threatening wound. </p><p>Rafael shakes his head. "Well, uh, I guess we have to roll the dice here." He laughs, sounding a little pathetic. "Haha. I'm really regretting not sleeping at all the past 80 hours!" </p><p>"What dice?" Jie stares intently at Rafael. </p><p>His husband looks at Jie, afraid. "If you're actually Jie, or... if I messed up, and you're an incubus inhabiting his body. I knew that that was a risk, and that both outcomes would look really similar at the start, since we need semen to be spilled to complete the ritual, but I... haha..." Rafael shakes. "Either we fuck and my husband is back, or we fuck and now I'm tied to an incubus for the rest of my life. Otherwise, I definitely have a dead husband, since he needs to make love to his beloved to regain his vitality. Otherwise he falls back into the abyss, which is the absolute worst case scenario." He lets out a single crazed laugh. "I've got some pretty great odds here!" </p><p>Jie raises his eyebrows in concern. <em>I'm me,</em> Jie wants to say. But he knows Rafael. Rafael loves him deeply - more than the ocean, more than the sky, more than majick itself - but Rafael has limits, as any human would. "I'll show you the truth," Jie says instead, and crawls over to his husband. </p><p>Rafael is stiff as Jie kisses him, which is extremely unusual. Typically, Rafael becomes incredibly lax, opens himself up to Jie without hesitation. Jie knows that Rafael would never do that for anyone else, never has done that for anyone else. So maybe this reaction is to be expected. All the same... if the ritual needs to be completed, then they need to keep going. Rafael went this far for Jie, so Jie has to return the favor for Rafael. </p><p>Even if it hurts. Even if Rafael doesn't seem to want this much, which makes Jie not want this much, despite his body screaming at him for release. </p><p>With uneven hands, Jie unbuttons Rafael's robe. This is also unusual; Jie figures that it's a consequence of - well, probably being dead for three days, if he's understanding what Rafael's been telling him - but it still isn't anything like what Jie is used to. Normally, he can get Rafael naked in less than thirty seconds flat. Now, he's taking ten seconds per button. It's embarrassing, and it isn't instilling any confidence in Rafael. </p><p>Even so, Rafael is really trying. Jie can see it. Rafael closes his eyes and gulps audibly as Jie pulls his robe off of his shoulders, and trembles as Jie kisses right where the curve of his neck meets his shoulder. Jie inhales slowly. Rafael is completely naked underneath, although he's not nearly as hard as Jie is. The smell of burning roses is overpowering, even erasing the scent of his husband. Jie was only dead for three days, and that heaviest sleep was filled with empty and nothing... but he hasn't realized until now how much he missed that scent, the one he woke up to every morning. Incense and amber and fresh water, distinctly Rafael. Jie buries his face deeper against Rafael's skin, and frowns. He can't smell him. </p><p>That's one of the first human senses to go during the biological process of death, so it makes sense that it's the last one to come back in its full power. All the same, Jie feels disconnected from Rafael in this moment, and from his own body as well. </p><p>Rafael shudders and stifles a sob as he lies down on his back. "Jie..." he calls out, and Jie can't tell if Rafael is addressing him or someone who is far away, driving along the I-95 at midnight. That was only three days ago. Has Jie changed that much? Does death change who a person is in an intrinsic way that Jie cannot understand? </p><p>In one way or another, they're going to have to do it, so Jie will take this burden for Rafael and initiate. </p><p>He lies atop Rafael, as he has done hundreds of times in the past. Rafael is still more soft than he is hard, but Jie thinks he might have a few ways to fix that. "Raf, I love you," he says quietly. "I'm so glad you saved me." He slowly rubs his cock against Rafael's thigh. "It'll be okay. We'll make it through this together." </p><p>These words don't seem to comfort Rafael as much as Jie had hoped, but the familiar sensation of Jie's cock pressing into his skin makes Rafael's body react. Rafael bites his lip and closes his eyes, whimpering softly as his own cock starts growing harder. "Jie," he whispers. "Please, come back to me." </p><p>His whimpers turn into one strangled sob as Jie grasps onto his cock, stroking it somewhat unevenly. His arm isn't moving exactly as he wants it to - all the movements are jerky. This has the opposite effect than Jie expected, however - Rafael gets harder even faster than normal. Jie makes a mental note of this, which might be silly. There's no guarantee that he will even survive tonight. Maybe Rafael will lose faith in him and everything will fall apart - </p><p>No. Jie has to believe in Rafael, even if Rafael doesn't believe in him. </p><p>He slips his own cock between his palm and Rafael's erection, and slowly starts thrusting. Death has dulled his sense of touch, so it doesn't feel as intense as it might have otherwise. This was one of their favorite ways to have sex, especially on lazy weekend mornings when both of them were sleepy. Rafael would cling onto Jie and moan his name, and Jie would never fail to come first. But this pleasure feels just on the very outskirts of his senses - all he feels is heat, need, need, <em>need</em>, without any sort of release or relief at all. Jie thrusts faster, hoping that maybe more friction will make him feel something. </p><p>Rafael lets out a little sob. "Jie..." Finally, he wraps his arms around Jie's back and kisses him. It's fairly passionless - Jie can taste Rafael's fear - but the feeling of Rafael's body pressing against his own makes Jie feel like he can go a little harder. He grinds against Rafael intently, moving his hand up and down in time with his thrusts. Rafael moans into his mouth, and finally Jie can feel that Rafael's body is warming up - the terror that made Rafael's skin tremble only moments ago melts away into arousal. Jie still isn't sure if Rafael would do this if the spell didn't require it, but there's not much to be done at this point. </p><p>In the end, it's all about being close, both for Rafael and for Jie. They've gotten creative with their love-making in the past, but Rafael always comes hardest when Jie is connected to him from thigh to chest, and Jie always comes hardest when they're kissing. They want to be a part of each other. If the circumstances were different - if this didn't require them to be forced to have sex - Jie would probably be deeply moved that Rafael breathed life back into Jie. In a way, that meant Rafael will always inside of Jie. He couldn't imagine anything more romantic, anything more deeply erotic. </p><p>Jie breathes in deeply, feeling his lungs expand in a way that doesn't hurt. This, too, is Rafael's design. Rafael notices Jie breathing easily, and silent tears run down his face. Jie isn't sure if Rafael is overjoyed or terrified. Perhaps he is both. </p><p>This would be beautiful if it wasn't so awful. </p><p>The closeness closes in on Jie. He kisses Rafael deeply, and Rafael moans, his fingernails scratching down Jie's skin. Right now, it is just him and Rafael. The world outside of them doesn't exist. Rafael breathes life into Jie, and Jie has to spill some of his life force to ensure that he continues breathing. He thinks about this, and thinks about the last time Rafael was inside of him, and feels his cock twitch. "Raf," Jie groans between kisses. "Mm, Raf..." </p><p>To Jie's surprise, Rafael comes first, his legs wrapping around Jie's waist as his cock spasms against Jie's. That's enough. With that, Jie comes, fucking into his own hand weakly as ropes of come paint Rafael's dark skin. </p><p>Jie feels dizzy. He collapses on top of Rafael, panting. Rafael's limbs fall off of Jie's back and he sighs, staring up at the ceiling. </p><p>"So..." Jie manages after a moment. "Can you tell who I am?" </p><p>Rafael shakes his head. "I can't. The deed is done either way, I guess."</p><p>Jie sits up. Rafael stares at the wall on the other side of the room. "I guess you're right," Jie says. He presses down on his ribs. There is no pain, except for the pain in his heart for not being recognized. "It is finished." </p><p>Rafael rolls over on his side. "I'm tired. Haven't slept in eighty hours. I need to sleep." He grasps onto his robe and pulls it loosely over his body, tucking it up underneath his chin. "If you're Jie, you know where the food is if you need it. We should have some stuff that hasn't gone bad. And if you're an incubus..." He waves a hand vaguely. "You should be full at least for the next couple of hours." </p><p>"Raf - " Jie starts, but Rafael places a hand over his ear. </p><p>"I don't want to know the truth. Not right now." </p><p>With that, Rafael goes to sleep - a place as dark and cold as the land that Jie inhabited for three days. Jie frowns. After hesitating a moment, he curls up behind Rafael and wraps an arm around him. He leans against Rafael's body, hoping to penetrate his robe with his own body warmth - but some things cannot sink in through dreams. Jie senses that it's frozen and empty where Rafael is, without any light at all. </p><p>Jie will wait. Hopefully, when he wakes, Rafael will see that Jie is really back. And if not... </p><p>Closeness to Rafael is what keeps Jie alive. He figures that Rafael is the same way. Til death do they part, for better or for worse. </p><p>Jie closes his eyes and listens to the sound of his heartbeat. <em>Lub-dub. Lub-dub. Lub-dub.</em> It drowns out all other sensation. If Jie focuses on that sound, then the feeling isolation of lying next to his husband without being able to touch his heart fades away. <em>Lub-dub. Lub-dub...</em> And yet his heart still aches. </p>
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